Listen Up Philip

Listen Up Philip (15)

USA 2014  109 mins  Dir: Alex Ross Perry Starring: Jason Schwartzman, Elisabeth Moss, Krysten Ritter, Jonathan Pryce, Joséphine de La Baume, Dree Hemingway

Ask yourself this: do you really want to spend the best part of two hours in the company of someone who’s described, quite accurately, by his former roommate as an “insufferable piece of shit”? Before you answer, do bear in mind that in one important regard Alex Ross Perry’s breakthrough film represents a departure from the US Sundance indieflick template. In a smug and self-satisfied genre that understands the wish-fulfilment needs of its audience just as ruthlessly as any big studio product, the sensitive, over-educated, self-absorbed dweeb is generally depicted in a sympathetic light and rewarded with the improbable love of the fabled Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Listen Up Philip makes no such fantasy concessions. Instead, loathsome young-ish novelist Philip Lewis Friedman (Schwartzman) remains defiantly repellent to the end, his monumental self-regard emptying his bed of attractive women who are foolhardy enough to share it.

We meet arrogant misanthropist Friedman enjoying a sustained gloat over publication of his long-gestating, pretentiously titled second novel Obidant, during which he humiliates an ex, alienates his publisher, annoys his long-suffering successful photographer girlfriend Ashley (Moss – Peggy from Mad Men), and even rejects the advances of a cute literary groupie (Hemingway) because she is insufficiently in awe of his genius. Alas, Obidant seems to be heading for poor reviews, but it does win one important admirer: feted Ike Zimmerman (Pryce), the aging, opinionated, increasingly isolated author of Madness & Women, who is transparently based on Philip Roth. Zimmerman becomes awestruck Friedman’s mentor, principally so he can have someone to patronise and condescend to, but also because he recognises something of himself in the young egotist. We also recognise where Friedman is heading.

Eric Bogosian’s occasionally droll voiceover narration gives the film a Woody Allen-ish feel, albeit with nastiness in place of neurosis, as does some of Perry’s dialogue (“I’m not successful, I’m notable,” snaps Friedman at one point. “There’s a difference.”). Perhaps in recognition of the fact that relentless narcissism is too much for even the strongest stomach to bear, a lengthy middle section abandons the two main characters to catch up with abandoned Ashley. Not unreasonably, she has decided that she’s better off with a cat. Of all the dislikeable characters at which Jason Schwartzman excels, Friedman is easily the most punchable, while Pryce captures effortlessly Zimmerman’s toxic emotional cocktail of pomposity and self-pity – notably in a cringe-making scene where he attempts a desperate legover, only to be busted by his acerbic, resentful daughter (Ritter). Ashley is the sole character here that you want to root for, and Elisabeth Moss does her best in a role that offers little opportunity to shine amid the sustained literary onanism.